ECtHR: Trans people should have full enjoyment of the right to physical and moral integrity

 

 

Ali Nezhet Bozlu and Alpay Antmen, the President of Mersin Bar Association, made a press conference and Antmen declared how much he is proud of seeing the Mersin Bar Association leading such an important case started in 2005 on the ground of the right to respect for private life. Antmen also added that “I wanted to thank lawyer Seyhan Gokturk who exhausted domestic remedies, then applied to the local court for the second time. I also thank lawyer Ali Nezhet Bozlu who carried the case to the ECtHR.”

 

Bozlu shared that the reason standing behind the refusal of a trans person to have access to gender reassignment surgery was Article 40 of the Turkish Civil Code stipulating that permission for gender reassignment surgery can only be given if the person is over 18 and unmarried and if the person has obtained official medical board reports to prove that the operation is psychologically needed and that the ability to reproduce is permanently lost.

 

Bozlu saying that “this article pushed a person to be exposed to contradiction between the one’s body and soul” thanked the Counseling Centre for Transgender People Association, Kaos GL Association and Red Umbrella Sexual Health and Human Rights Association.

 

Ali Nezhet Bozlu answered kaosGL.org’s questions about the following legal process and the court’s interpretation:

 

 

Articles 43 and 44 of the European Convention on Human Rights are guiding the further process. The Chamber’s decision has not been certain yet. One of the parties can submit the decision to the Grand Chamber in 3 months. In this case, Turkey might make a request for carrying the decision to the Grand Chamber, yet the decision is in favor of the applicant. If the government makes such a request, the Committee, consisting of 5 judges, will decide whether the case should be reexamined. If the Committee agrees that the decision should be reexamined, the case will be brought to the Grand Chamber and its decision will be taken into consideration. If not, the decision of the Chamber becomes the certain one.   

 

 

The European Court of Human Rights held that “right to self-determination” was an inseparable part of freedom to determine the applicant’s own gender identity. It is important to highlight that “right to self-determination” was used together with “freedom to determine gender identity.”        

 

 

We can classify the court’s interpretation of Article 8 relating to trans identities as:

 

First, the court reiterated that transsexuals should have full enjoyment of the right to personal development and physical and moral integrity just like anyone else in society and it could not be regarded as a controversial question.

 

Second, the Court expressed that the social acceptance of transsexual people and the acknowledgement of transsexual people’s new gender identities after the surgery were very important although there is a lack of common perspective in Europe.

 

Third, the Court emphasized the recommendation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on the ground of trans people’s right to access to official documents that reflect an individual’s preferred gender identity, without any prior obligation to undergo sterilization or other medical procedures such as gender reassignment surgery and hormonal therapy.

 

After all, we will be able to see the details of the court’s decision once it is translated in Turkish.

 

Translation: LGBTI News Turkey